Jimquisition: Rape vs. Murder

[somonels]

Didn't feel this week's episode, not only because Jim over-glorified himself taking a stance on a tired topic but got this out of it instead of developers using escalating shock values, making fairly naive assumptions on player behavior and - as a rare and woefully brief moment - using the medium correctly as a conditioning device.

Rape is made of elemental evil, Murder... is a grey area?
You may claim to be talk to god, and act the way you do, but I don't think the psychiatrists will help you either, Jim.

 

[Treblaine]

Is it just me, or are all the moral arguments coming from the perspective of a game where you - the player - is raping other characters. Isn't that completely different matter if your playable character is the one who would be the one that the enemies are trying to rape.

All very good points of how in most games they don't glorify or trivialise murder, but almost exclusively depict JUSTIFIED killing, justified often by tenuous means but not killing for the sake of killing. And there is no justification for rape. But killing and general use of violent force is justified in preventing injustice to yourself, or at the very least in completing an objective.

I think video games ARE ready for antagonists who rape, I think that fear of rape is a suitable motivator for the player to avoid and is an evil logic to the antagonist's motivation. See Deliverance, Pulp Fiction or the Millennium Trilogy. Video games are ready for this.

But not "battle raper" which I understand is just about the player acting out a rape fantasy, rather than them pitted AGAINST a "rape horror". Dying and capture in a video game has always lacked weight for how you are essentially invincible...

As to rape survivors, they should not play such games, not until they are ready and only if they want to or think it would help them deal with it. There are MILLIONS of soldiers who are severely traumatised by the horrors of war, they should not play violent war games as they risk disturbing flashbacks. Someone who was violently mugged and beaten into disability should not play a fighting tournament game. If we exercise self-censorship by how certain individuals might have been personally affected then we couldn't do anything. If your parents recently had a traumatic divorce, then don't go see Kramer vs Kramer as it'll be too raw.

Spoiler: few points of inaccuracy

PS: dave chapelle's "whore uniform" is talking about prostitution or being "easy". Raping a prostitute or "sexually liberal" woman is still rape, not theft or fraud. He is suggesting a guy be lecherous to a woman asking for her phone number because she is in a "whore's uniform"... not beat her unconscious and violently sodomise her. It has nothing to do with rape.

PPS: men need to be told not to rape in the same sense they need to be told not to murder, or not to start fires, or steal things, or vandalise property. Every boy and girl is told not to hurt women and rape clearly hurts them. Men ARE told this with the "no means no" ads and the UK has an ad series as well

 

[Evil Smurf]

You are very brave for making a video about this Jim.

 

[Chaos Marine]

I agree with everything here. Another view point would be, however, better someone gets their rape-jolies in a game than in real life.

 

[Treblaine]

I find myself agreeing with pretty much everything Jim is saying, but I still have a hard time buying into the idea that rape is objectively worse than murder. I actually wrote an post on my blog a while back about Rapelay. The main point I wanted to make was the game kind of got scapegoated to avoid facing much larger social issues.

Here's a link if you want to read it:

http://caseygoddard.blogspot.jp/2011/05/in-defense-of-indefensible.html

There's also some links at the end of the blog post to some other interesting views others have had on the game.

Yes, murder is worse than rape. But do you actually "murder" in video games?

Is rape worse than killing your opponent in combat? Murder is UNJUSTIFIED killing. Rape is unjustifiably having intercourse with someone. You justifiably have sex with someone with their consent, when it is not rape but simply sexual intercourse.

I'm not saying soldiers "consent" to being killed by enemy snipers. But by taking up arms and aggressive stance, there IS the agreement to "kill or be killed". That's the often enumerated code of war that all humans have understood since pre-history, to submit and accept domination and fight. A recent development is the concept of surrender, that one can even after taking up arms my put down arms and submit to capture and not be killed, and that if arms are laid down then to be killed then is murder except in extreme circumstances where they cannot be taken prisoner.

And of course, games don't "really" have death. Team Fortress 2 where everyone respawns so easily and you of course never feel any pain of dismemberment, how is this death? Death is painful and PERMANENTLY ends life. But that doesn't happen in video games. It's an inconvenience. But rape is a traumatic memory, you can't just rewind the clock or die and re-spawn it will always have happened.

But compare the controversy over Rapley (Rape-lay? Ra-Play?) with the "No Russian" level in Modern Warfare 2.

See the No-Russian level had MURDER! Killing civilians en mass in unmistakably murder - unjustified killing - and it was controversial as hell, only got a free pass as you did not "have" to shoot, it was not your actual mission, just to stand there and walk with them. Grand Theft Auto has gotten similar flack for the ability to kill civilians but it was never what the game was actually about so barely sneaked through.

There isn't a grey area between rape and sex.

But there is a grey area between justified killing and murder, which is why as controversial as murder is in games it will more likley get through on that ambiguity where rape won't as it is so black and white.

 

[SoopaSte123]

Spot on again, Jim. Yknow, I can't remember watching a Jimquisition video I've disagreed with (and that's saying something because I disagree with a lot of things). Perhaps one of the first few episodes... but I don't remember those with much clarity. Regardless, thank god for you, Jim.

 

[The Last Parade]

I dont think rape should be banned from video games, but it shouldn't be glorified

 

[Treblaine]

I agree with everything here. Another view point would be, however, better someone gets their rape-jolies in a game than in real life.

Well maybe rather than that, a BDSM simulator. Which makes clear it is Domination play, both partners willing playing an act a role for fun, not actual unwilling rape. But then again, that would be kind of a trivial distinction as there is no real "will" in an AI controlled character anyway. I don't know, just make clear it's OK to play dom-games with your partner, no so much with some random person you meet in a subway.

 

[JoaoJatoba]

First of all, rape is wrong and immoral. It's such a violent act that nothing would justify it.

However, concerning video games, I cannot see the difference between a 'rape game' and sex practices such hardcore S&M and assault role-play. Bear in mind I assume such sex fetishism is being practice by sane and responsible adults, and the women KNOW they are in a safe environment (safe word: banana) with someone they trust, doing something they want.

I know (or want to believe at least) that women that are into that kind of thing DO NOT WANT TO BE RAPE FOR REAL. No sane human would like to be rape. But, for some couples, it's game. As much as 'video rape game'.

That's the only reason I, till now, been not able to condemn such games.

What you guys think?

 

[Soxafloppin]

Really enjoyed this weeks episode, I don't mind rape being part of the Story of a game...but as a Gameplay element? Fuq dat sheet.

 

[Excludos]

Good video this week, Jim. Altough there was a couple of points I think needs discussing, I generally agree with you. Rape is a tool that can be used to define a character or a story in a game. But it should never be the core mechanic of a game, and it certainly shouldn't be pleasurable. Killing, on the other hand, in a story element, can be both pleasurable (hopefully in a non-sexual way) and justified. And for the most part it also doesn't leave any victims. With that said, the tool for "victimized" killing in a game is there just as much as rape, and I condemn games that use them the wrong way as well.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

You say that there is no chance to heal yourself after death. This is true. However, you don't have to live with it. You don't heal after rape. It says with you for the rest of your life.

That's not necessarily true. I have been raped, and I consider myself healed. Although I won't forget it (at least until dementia sets in), I consider myself "healed" of it. It no longer has any power over me. I could have killed myself over it, and I would no longer be here.

I'm not sure if that's better or worse, but that's a whole other elephant in the room - should we have the right to kill ourselves? I think that's a more important topic to deal with before we try justifying murder, as Jim and and many other people here are trying to do.

 

[Alexnader]

when you think about it, isnt rape like torture? like, its tourture more or less. doesnt kill you, but its torture...

Yeah in terms of how reprehensible it is I'd agree in saying rape and torture can be on the same par. It's about power imbalance, there is a victim who is often permanently scarred mentally and physically and to be reminded of such treatment could well be just as horrifying as being reminded of rape.

Anyway as for the Jim's main argument, I agree entirely however he needs to do a better job distinguishing murder from other forms of killing.

Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide (such as manslaughter). - Wikipedia (so it's true automatically)

Killing enemy soldiers in a war is not legally murder, fighting off an attacker in self defense is generally not considered murder. This is the kind of homicide that most games employ, those that go beyond these PG-13 forms of killing are often just as controversial as games featuring rape. e.g. Going Postal or that game that was going to let you re-enact the columbine massacre.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

There isn't a grey area between rape and sex.

Actually, I think there is. In many countries there are laws about "statutory rape" which mean that even if two people who are passionately in love with each other have consensual sex, it is considered rape because one of the partners is older than the other.

Most legal codes have very strange rules regarding sexual conduct, in which one day you are a minor who is unable to consent to intercourse, yet magically being one day older results in a huge change of status, where you are allowed to consent to just about anything.

I think our legal codes don't really coincide with reality, where things are much more indeterminate and dependent on context.

 

[HarryScull]

the thing about equal opportunity falls flat when I consider how much chance the innocent town guard had against the all powerful dragonborn

other than that it was a good episode

 

[Treblaine]

Hitman is the closest you get to a murder simulator... but not quite.

Agent 47's motivation is never just to kill for the sake of killing. He kills for another purpose, such as his affecting political change, administering a personal justice (i.e. revenge) or preserving his own life from someone or group that threatens him.

But it does LOOK a lot like he is a serial killer when he sneaks into people's bedroom and butchers them alive. But you all ways get the sense it is somehow justified. Like you were killing real villains as a comeuppance for their insinuated crimes.

But you can't ever get that justified impression with Agent 47 sneaking in a giving surprise buttsecks to his "targets". Rape is 100% selfish, while taking someone's life may help others for how that person hurts others. Like capping drug dealers or corrupt politicians, it serves a purpose of killing them to simply STOP the doing any more bad things.

Hitman games in fact reward the player for killing AS FEW people as possible. My most enjoyment playing Hitman was being near totally traceless, apart from the killing of the actual target it's an amazingly non-violent game, all about sneaking, trickery and misdirection.

 

[Treblaine]

There isn't a grey area between rape and sex.

Actually, I think there is. In many countries there are laws about "statutory rape" which mean that even if two people who are passionately in love with each other have consensual sex, it is considered rape because one of the partners is older than the other.

Most legal codes have very strange rules regarding sexual conduct, in which one day you are a minor who is unable to consent to intercourse, yet magically being one day older results in a huge change of status, where you are allowed to consent to just about anything.

I think our legal codes don't really coincide with reality, where things are much more indeterminate and dependent on context.

Well that grey area is semantics, the problem is using the term "rape" for an 18 year old having sex with a 17 year old. I'm not saying it should be legal, I'm saying it should be treated differently from rape and certainly have a different name than rape. And not really relevant to this discussion which isn't about a dating games where some of the people to woo are under the age of consent.

By rape, it's clear Jim (and I) were talking about adults forcing other adults to engage in sexual intercourse. There is no grey area between that rape and sex. Though Jim seems to mainly focus on the side of the player controlling a (presumably) male character who rapes mainly female characters.

I focused more on being a character (male or female) where the AI antagonists are trying to rape the protagonists and they could be male, female or a genderless alien. Think of Ridley Scott's Alien... just not "impregnating" via the mouth...

 

[Aardvaarkman]

By rape, it's clear Jim (and I) were talking about adults forcing other adults to engage in sexual intercourse. There is no grey area between that rape and sex.

No, that is not at all clear.

Neither Jim or yourself mention rape as an activity that only involves actions between adults. As legally defined, rape includes the violation of minors. In fact, most people would consider the rape of minors to be more heinous than the rape of adults.

Your wording seems to imply that the rape of minors is less serious than the rape of adults. Additionally, it's rather strange that you define rape as "forcing other adults to engage in sexual intercourse" - there's nothing about rape that requires the victim to "engage in sexual intercourse" - it's physical violence that is forced upon them - not something that requires engagement in anything sexual.

 

[Treblaine]

when you think about it, isnt rape like torture? like, its tourture more or less. doesnt kill you, but its torture...

Yeah in terms of how reprehensible it is I'd agree in saying rape and torture can be on the same par. It's about power imbalance, there is a victim who is often permanently scarred mentally and physically and to be reminded of such treatment could well be just as horrifying as being reminded of rape.

I wonder what is the purpose of focusing on the power imbalance. Surely shooting someone in the face is also a power imbalance. Suplexing a player into a concrete floor is about power, dominating your opponent. And doing such things are also would be painful, extremely painful in terms of things like burning someone with a flamethrower. So many games have down right torturous death.

If power, domination and pain are the problems with rape then those are also the problem with violence in games, including justified homicide such as self defence or in war.

The point is that rape doesn't serve a purpose, shooting and killing someone stops them hurting you or others, which is the reason to justify such violence in the first place. You can't rape in self-defence. Rape gives selfish sexual satisfaction at the direct expense of their suffering and humiliation.